by Lucy Ellis
‘You don’t run it?’
‘Well, no.’
He was shrugging out of his coat, looking around the entrance hall as if expecting minions to appear and help him. ‘So you don’t run it, you’re the secretary. How long has this been going on?’ he asked.
‘A little under a year. Mr Voronov was kind enough—’
‘For you to take advantage.’
‘No, that’s not—’
Sybella promptly lost her train of thought as the tailored wool slid down his arms and she discovered what had felt so solid outside when she’d been holding onto him. An expensive-looking charcoal sweater clung to broad shoulders and a long, hard, lean waist, apparently packed with bricks. Narrow muscled hips and long powerful legs filled out his dark jeans. By the time she reached his big, got-to-be-size-fifteen hand-tooled boots the tour had effectively rendered Sybella slightly dazzled and a whole lot mute.
She realised she’d just checked him out.
It was either her silence or the raptness of her regard that had him look up from shaking out his coat and give her that once-over thing men did, the subtle up and down assessment as to whether or not he’d consider sleeping with her…and Sybella had the humiliating thought he’d caught her staring and assumed she was doing the same thing.
Which she was. Unintentionally. Not because she was considering sleeping with him. Goodness, no. She hadn’t meant to ogle him. It had just happened. But he didn’t know that.
What made it worse was the Climb and Ski gear had currently turned her perfectly nice woman’s body into a flotation device and the likelihood of him finding anything attractive about her was zilch.
‘Care to tell me what you were really doing jumping out at me in the dark?’ His eyes held a new awareness now that she’d pretty much flagged she found him attractive. Sybella could feel her cheeks hot as coals. He made her feel like a teenage girl with a boy she liked. It was ridiculous at her advanced age of twenty-eight.
‘I didn’t jump out at you. You threw luggage at me!’ He had moved across to the open boot-room door to hang up his coat. Sybella followed him, a tiny tug boat to his tanker.
‘I expected to be greeted by staff,’ he said.
She guessed that put her in her place. Sybella surreptitiously admired his rear, which like the rest of him appeared to be pure muscle, which was when he just tossed the grenade in.
‘I also thought you were a man.’
And there went what was left of her self-image tonight.
‘Wh-what?’ she bleated, like a stupid lamb for slaughter.
‘I mean, obviously you’re not,’ he said, frowning at her as if he’d just noticed her stricken expression and was assessing what it meant.
‘No,’ she choked, ‘not a man. Thanks.’
‘It was dark and you’re wearing unisex clothing.’ He was hanging up his coat, drawing attention to the flex of muscles along his back.
‘This isn’t unisex.’ Sybella looked down at her considerable padded bulk. ‘It’s oyster-pink.’
His expression told her he didn’t make the connection.
‘Pink is traditionally a female colour,’ she spelt out.
He continued to look doubtful.
She huffed out a breath. ‘Look, this parka was clearly marked “Women Size L” on the rack,’ she insisted. Then stopped.
Had she just informed him she was size large?
Yes—yes, she had.
‘It was dark,’ he repeated, and the frown was back.
He closed the door behind him, crowding her back out into the corridor.
When she picked up her bruised and bloodied self-esteem from the floor, Sybella would remind herself she was tall, wearing layers and a ski mask, and he was right—it was dark. Her throat felt tight, because it wasn’t that dark.
Sybella only felt worse when he took the main stairs with an effortless stride that left her labouring as best she could in his wake, because by now she was not only wet through, the all-weather gear was making it difficult to move freely.
It begged the question how people climbed mountains in these things when she was finding a staircase hard going.
She was a little out of breath at the top.
‘You need to get a bit more exercise,’ he said, stopping to look down at her. ‘You’re out of shape.’
Really? That was what he had to say to her? The only time she ever got to sit down was on a quiet afternoon at the records office where she worked.
‘Shouldn’t you be on your way up to see your grandfather?’ she said instead, no longer at all keen to explain anything to him. She just wanted to go home. Preferably to a hot bath where she could enjoy a little cry.
‘He’ll keep.’
He’ll keep? What sort of grandson was he? Well, she knew the answer to that. The absent kind. She scowled at his back. If he hadn’t been absent she wouldn’t be in this fix.
Sybella followed him down the Long Gallery. She regularly conducted tours of this room, pointing out the features, recounting the history of the house. She suspected Mr I-thought-you-were-a-man wouldn’t be very happy if he knew.
There were six Jacobean chairs piled up in the middle of the room, awaiting a home.
‘What in the hell?’ he said, circling them.
She opted for a cheerful, ‘Don’t you love these? Your grandfather had them brought down from storage in the attics. We haven’t worked out where to put them.’
‘We?’ He rounded on her. ‘You’re interested in the contents of the house?’
As if she were some kind of criminal. Sybella found herself backing up a bit. ‘No, I’m interested in the past.’
‘Why?’
A little flustered by the way he was looking at her, all suspicious and hard-eyed but making her feel very much a woman despite what he’d said, she found herself struggling for an answer. ‘I don’t know. I just am.’
He looked unimpressed.
She had to do better. She rummaged around for something he’d believe. ‘If you grew up like I did in a very modern house in a relentlessly upmarket housing estate you’d see the beauty in old things too.’
He looked skeptical.
‘It was the most soulless place on this green earth. I knew from an early age there had to be something better. More meaningful.’
Sybella took a breath, realising she’d told him a little more than she had meant to.
‘Why does furniture have more meaning if it’s old?’
‘Because old things have stories attached to them, and the furniture that’s survived tends to have been made by craftsmen and women. Artists.’
‘You’re a romantic,’ he said, again as if this were a crime.
‘No, I’m practical.’ She’d had to be. ‘Although I guess as a child I read books about other children who lived in old houses and fantasised that might be me one day.’
‘Is that so?’
Nik was tempted to ask her if she could see herself in this house.
‘It’s not unusual,’ she said defensively. ‘Lots of children have thoughts like that, and I had a good reason to.’
Nik suspected he was about to hear a sob story. He was also aware if he gave her enough rope she’d probably happily hang herself. She was nervous around him and it was making her talk.
‘I’m more curious about your interest in this house,’ he growled.
‘No, you asked me why I was interested in the past.’
He added pedantic to overweight and possibly a con-artist.
‘Old houses, miserable childhood, check.’
‘I didn’t say I had a miserable childhood.’ She looked affronted. ‘I said the house was soulless,’ she said firmly. ‘We were the only people who had ever lived there. Which was ironic.’
‘I’ll bite—why?’
She tried to fold her arms, which was rendered difficult by the bulk of her clothing. ‘Because the woman who raised me was obsessed with genealogy. Her genealogy, not mine, as it turned out.’
> ‘You were adopted?’
She nodded, for the first time looking less communicative. Her pretty face was closed up like a fist.
He’d been fifteen when he was told his father was not his father, and Nik had always looked at his life in terms of before and after.
‘When did you find out?’
She looked up at him as if gauging whether to tell him. ‘I was twelve. It was when my parents separated.’
‘Must have been difficult.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was more difficult when they handed me back.’
‘They handed you back?’
She was radiating tension now. ‘Dumped me in a very nice boarding school and left me there for six years.’
He almost laughed. That was her complaint?
Spoilt upper-class girl still bemoaning her school years at what—going by her elocution—was an upmarket school. He wondered what else she had to complain about. And here he was, actually feeling sorry for her.
She was good, he had to give her that.
‘Have you ever considered they were giving you a good education?’
‘They gave me a very good education,’ she said tonelessly, looking down at her clasped hands. She probably understood her bid for sympathy was going nowhere. ‘But I saw them very rarely in the term breaks and now not at all. It was as good as handing me back.’
Sybella was pleased with her command of herself and that she could talk about her adoptive parents in a forthright way. He’d asked the questions; she’d merely answered them. No external emotion needed.
Only for all her firmness on the subject she could feel the cold running like a tap inside her and she would have trouble turning it off tonight.
‘That is a sad little story,’ he said, something in his tone making her think he didn’t quite believe her.
She suddenly felt self-conscious and slightly annoyed. ‘I guess it is. I don’t know why I told you all that. I’m sure it’s not at all interesting to a man like yourself.’
‘You’d be surprised what interests me.’
Sybella discovered she didn’t have anything smart to say in answer to that. But she couldn’t help running her gaze over his broad shoulders, remembering how strong and sure he’d felt holding her.
His eyes caught hers and something flared between them. ‘And what exactly interests you, Miss Parminter?’
Sybella knew what interested her, and it wasn’t going to happen.
She could feel her face filling up with heat.
‘It’s Mrs,’ she stated baldly in a desperate attempt to deflect whatever he might say next. ‘Mrs Parminter.’
‘You’re married?’
There had been a current of awareness zipping between them from the time she’d been grappling with him in the snow, only Sybella didn’t know that until this very second as it was sucked back to nothingness and what was left was a tense, awkward silence.
Sybella didn’t know what to say.
But he did.
‘Does your husband know you’re out at night running around with other men?’
CHAPTER FOUR
WITH TOO MANY bad memories still beating around in her head something snapped inside Sybella, enough to have her hand arcing through the air.
Fortunately his reflexes were quicker than hers and he gripped her wrist, holding her immobile.
There was a fraught silence in which all she could hear was her pulse drumming in her ears. Then he said quietly, ‘That was out of line,’ releasing her arm so that Sybella could slowly lower it to her side.
‘It’s none of my business,’ he added. Which was when she realised he wasn’t talking about her trying to hit him. He was apologising for what he’d said.
The fight went out of Sybella, and with it flooded in the knowledge she’d almost hit another person.
Last year Fleur had pushed over a little boy in her social group and Sybella had sat down and had the talk with her. Physically hurting someone was wrong. Whatever the provocation, she must use her words, not her fists. And here she was, mother of the year, trying to slug a perfect stranger!
She’d had provocation all right, but that wasn’t an excuse.
She needed to apologise to him but Sybella found herself struggling because he’d implied something, and he hadn’t taken that back. Which was very different from saying it was none of his business.
‘Six years ago my husband kissed me and climbed into his van and drove it out to the Pentwistle Farm,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and on the road between the farm and the turn-off he was struck by another car coming over the rise.’
Nik was looking at her with an expression she hadn’t seen before in this man.
As if he were taking her seriously.
‘So no, Mr Voronov, my husband has no idea what I’m doing nowadays—but I do. I wish I hadn’t tried to hit you. I can’t take that back. But you don’t get to say things like that to me. I don’t deserve your contempt, or do you just have a problem with women in general? I suspect you do.’
Sybella had no idea where all those words had come from or her ability to say them or even if they were true. But nothing had just ‘happened’ here tonight. It had been building since he’d held her in his arms outside in the snow and all the sensuality latent in her body had woken up.
She resented it, and she resented him. But none of that was his fault.
‘I suspect I have a problem with you, Mrs Parminter,’ he said slowly. ‘But I am sorry for what I said.’
‘You should be.’ She held his gaze. She could see her words had affected him and she could also see some grudging respect in his eyes and that gave her the grace to say, ‘I’m sorry too.’
She forced the apology out, because as wrong as her actions were she couldn’t yet let go of them, or the feelings that had provoked them. None of this had made her feel better; she felt worse. She wrapped arms around her waist as best she could in her ridiculous parka.
He was looking at her as if she deserved some compassion. He was wrong. She deserved a good talking-to for all the mistakes she’d made in dealing with this house.
‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘You need to take off your wet things.’
‘I don’t—’
‘You can dry them in front of the fire, or I can have them laundered.’
‘Please don’t bother.’ She passed a hand over her face. ‘I’m going to take them back to Climb and Ski tomorrow for a full refund.’
‘Are you all right?’
She blinked, taking her hand away from her face to find him watching her as if she might keel over. ‘I guess so.’
Which was when her eyes filled with tears. Oh, blast.
Tired, wet, in some serious trouble over her activities in this house, and yet troublingly aware of Nik Voronov as a man and her own deficiencies in that area, Sybella wanted nothing more than to wriggle out of her wet things and cast herself down in front of the fire and sleep for a hundred years.
But she didn’t get the fairy-tale option. She should be practising a better apology.
There was a rattle and clatter as Gordon, who ran the household, entered from a side door, wheeling the drinks trolley.
Saved by the man with the alcohol!
A long-time bachelor, Gordon was her ally in the house, having worked here for almost thirty years under the previous owner. He gave her a guarded look of surprise but didn’t say anything. He was too good at his job.
Her host meanwhile had signalled to Gordon he could deal with the drinks.
Sybella wondered if she could just slip out with the trolley. But the fire lured her and she turned away to deal with her wet things, surreptitiously sniffing and wiping at her eyes with her wrist. She stripped off her parka and then her cords, feeling self-conscious in her tights but not exposed. They were of a durable denier and thick enough to act as leggings. Frankly, it was a relief to be able to move her body freely again.
She laid out her jeans before the fire and had just strai
ghtened up when a towel dropped over her head.
She gave a start but with a gruff, ‘Hold still,’ her host began to vigorously but not roughly rub dry her damp hair.
After an initial protest of, ‘I can do this,’ she gave in, because really he was impossible to argue with.
But this was her role. For five years she’d been the caregiver. It was disconcerting to find herself the one being cared for. And as his strokes became more rhythmic Sybella found herself going quiescent, some of the tension of the crazy evening leaving her.
It had been so long since her needs were seen to by someone else. She’d forgotten it could be like this. Even when Simon had been alive he’d been so busy with his new veterinary practice in the few months they were married they had seemed only to bump into each other at night in bed, and Sybella could feel her skin suffusing with heat because another man’s hands were on her, if only drying her hair. But when she looked up and clashed with his grey eyes she was shocked into feelings so raw and insistent she barely recognised them as the gentle, awkward finding their way she’d had with Simon…
‘That’s enough,’ she said, her voice a little rough with the sudden upsurge of feeling beating around in her.
He paused but then continued to dry her even more vigorously.
‘If you collapse from pneumonia in a few days’ time—’ he said gruffly.
‘You don’t want it on your conscience?’
‘I don’t want a lawsuit.’
Sybella snorted, she couldn’t help it, and she felt rather than saw him smile.
‘I’m not a lawyer,’ she said, ‘and I don’t have the money for a lawyer.’
‘What do you do,’ he asked, removing the towel so that her head came back and she could see him, ‘besides haunt this house?’
She didn’t miss a beat. ‘I could give you a list?’
A slow grudging smile curled up his mouth, taking Sybella’s entire attention with it. ‘Why don’t you do that?’
As if he had all the time in the world to listen to her life story. As if like before she’d spill her guts.
Instead she asked, ‘Why don’t you visit your grandfather more often?’ It was the one thing that really bothered her, and it was more important than anything to do with the open house and how much trouble she would be in.